[Discuss] ZFS

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey)]

> From: matt at ciranttechnologies.com [mailto:matt at ciranttechnologies.com]
> 
> > Sorry, that's incorrect.  If somebody patents something, and later
> > somebody
> > else releases an open-source thing which violates that patent, then the
> > patent holder has grounds for legal action, against the producers,
> 
> Yeah, against commercial vendors, not end users.

Let's imagine you invent the round wheel.  (All wheels previously used were
square.)  Somebody steals your idea and sells a million trucks with round
wheels to moving companies.  The moving companies are the end users.  Yes,
you are within your rights to sue for damages from the person who stole and
sold your idea, and you can order a cease and desist against the people who
are using it for their own benefit without your permission.  The end users.
In which case the end users could attempt negotiating settlement terms with
you in order to resume their business operations using the round wheels they
bought from someone else.  You don't have to grant them such terms.  You
have it as your option to simply shut them down.

Apple had the option of using ZFS for free under CDDL, or paying Snoracle
for more favorable license terms.  They couldn't reach mutually agreeable
terms, indemnifying Apple against potential losses from Netapp litigation,
and Apple did not feel it was worth the potential risk of stopping shipment
of their systems and/or Snow Leopard.  So Apple canned ZFS.  This was more
like...  The person who supposedly infringed on the round wheel patent tried
to sell the round wheel to an auto manufacturer, who would then sell it to a
bunch of moving companies...  But the auto manufacturer knew of pending
litigation between the two supposed inventers of the round wheel, so the
auto  manufacturer decided to continue shipping their trucks with square
wheels, while the two supposed inventers duke it out.

In the end, snoracle earned themselves the right to ship ZFS without fear of
Netapp.  But the same does not apply to other people getting the ZFS code
and distributing it themselves...  Let's imagine IBM deployed a zillion
internal-use ZFS servers.  Let's suppose Netapp is thinking about shutting
down IBM in order to extort money out of IBM.  If IBM paid snoracle for this
product, then it's to be expected that snoracle would come to the defense of
IBM in that case.  But if IBM is using the standard open source code, then
it's entirely conceivable Netapp could order IBM to shutdown their ZFS
servers, and IBM might have no defense other than to pay Netapp.